Dedicated to the advancement of the State of Indiana by re-affirming our state's constitutional principles that: all people are created equal; no religious test shall be imposed on our public officials and offices of trust; and no special privileges or immunities shall be granted to any class of citizens which are not granted on the same terms to all citizens.
Advance Indiana, LLC. Copyright 2005-16. All rights reserved.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Multiple People Shot Downtown During Black Expo Tonight

At least two people have been shot downtown tonight during the Black Expo celebration according to Fox59 News shortly after a teen event ended at Conseco Fieldhouse. Two separate shootings took place at the corner of Maryland and Illinois Street in front of the Steak-N-Shake and at Meridian and Capital Streets. Two victims have been taken to Methodist and Wishard Hospitals.

UPDATE: Radio talk show host Abdul Hakim Shabazz is reporting there are 7 shooting victims on his twitter site, including a 10-year-old. Shootings and criminal activity have become synonymous downtown with this event each year, particularly the second weekend of the event. WTHR is also confirming there are 7 shooting victims. Last weekend, a teen-ager was shot in the leg along the canal downtown as Black Expo kicked off its first weekend events. It doesn't look like Mayor Greg Ballard's crime prevention grant to Black Expo is doing much to prevent crime at this year's event.

UPDATE II: WISH-TV is now reporting there are 89 10 shooting victims. Live coverage showed a number of persons being arrested as numerous fights broke out downtown in the aftermath of these shootings. A tenth person waas shot near the corner of Illinois and Market Streets following the first two shootings.

UPDATE III: Luckily, none of the shootings appears to have resulted in life-threatening injuries. Here's what the AP is saying:

Three separate shootings left 10 people wounded and scattered hundreds during an opening burst of gunfire in downtown Indianapolis during the crowded Indiana Black Expo, police said early Sunday.

Police spokesman Lt. Jeff Duhamell said authorities made no immediate arrests directly tied to the shootings and investigators were seeking leads to the suspects.

None of the victims' injuries were life-threatening, Duhamell told The Associated Press, adding that the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department had made three unrelated arrests on weapons charges . . .

Duhamell said the shooting victims were all males between 10 and 18 years old. He said most were taken to Wishard and Methodist hospitals, where they were in good condition early Sunday. One person was treated at the scene.

Authorities say none of the shootings occurred at venues playing host to Black Expo activities, but police patrolling amid the crowd moving about the Downtown area quickly converged on the scene.

"It's pretty unusual to have this many shots in one time. It's very unfortunate," Duhamell said.

Duhamell said investigators had no immediate report on a possible motive but were trying to determine if any of the shootings were gang-related.

He said hundreds of officers had been assigned to policing the 10-day event, which concludes today.

I noticed during coverage of Black Expo's summer celebration events that there were very few people who showed up for the Teen Bling event at Conseco Fieldhouse where the Colts' Reggie Wayne and the NBA's Greg Odom were playing in a basketball game. News of last night's shooting is making national headlines. CNN has a story here, MSNBC has a story here, CBS has a story here and Fox News has a story here. With all of the talk of building the City's image during the latest give-away to the Indiana Pacers, one has to wonder whether this kind of national media coverage does harm to our city's reputation. I would also like to see a report on how much police over-time is costing us for this event. Reports indicated there were more than 300 police officers patrolling downtown last night.

I think it's time to move the start times for these events up earlier in the day. The cover of darkness seems to bring out the bad folks. The events should be wrapped up by 9pm while it's still light out.

Actually, most restaurants and bars experience business loss during the event. Most of the people hang out on the streets and don't patronize the downtown bars and restaurants. I know the event's sponsor got upset a few years ago because some would close for summer repairs or cleaning during the second week of Black Expo. A manager at one of the restaurants told me he always experienced a problem of workers calling in sick during this weekend.

Here is how much this costs us, at a minimum:300 officers. Say 280 are working OT. Top out IMPD pay is now $62K/year, or $29/hour. Time and half pay is $44/hour. Say they work from 1800 till 0200, or eight hours. Payout for OT alone would be just under $100K.

The thing is, that $100K is a drop in the bucket compared to what healthcare costs will be treating all those who were shot. An ambulance ride is now $1,000ish, and that goes up the more supplies they use. A 15-min. visit to the ER costs my employer another $1,000. So that is $2,000 per person shot minimum. Obviously, we have gunshots, so may as well say $10K per person shot, with some cases running into the tens of thousands? So $100K for the extra cops, and another $100K (being very conservative here) for medial treatment if these kids don't have health care.

Don't forget the cost of defending silly lawsuits that will be filed claiming police just stood there and watched people get shot. We can recover some of those costs by simply cancelling the useless crime prevention grant Ballard has been doling out to Black Expo from money raised by that income tax increase of Peterson's he claimed he opposed but then made permanent.

Someone showed me some reports from the War Memorial Commission a couple of years ago that detailed the damage/trashing of the American Legion Mall each year during the concert on the last night of Black Expo. They wind up spending far more cleaning up and repairing all of the damage done during the concert than what is paid to use the space. If it were any other event, it would have long ago been cancelled, but because of racial backlash concerns, they simply take their lumps and let them go on trashing it every year.

So far all I have heard was that there was just one shooter, who did all this mayhem on other youth, a fourteen year old, name undisclosed, who police expect to arrest by Monday. We shall seerom

What I gathered from the televised press conference of the mayor, he was more concerned with the downtown losing business and the reputation of the city (of him), than with the pain and suffering of the young shooting victims.

The parents that care about their kids either escort them to the events or better yet stay at home on the weekend events at night. Yes it's time to either end the event or schedule no events after 9 P.M. and block off downtown and do not allow any kids 18 and under to be unescorted. Then run in all the kids who have no escorts. Yeah that will happen! ;) Peterson was the one who started the no harm (look the other way guys) no foul rule for the police to abide by.

SUPPORT ADVANCE INDIANA

It takes many hours of time to publish content for Advance Indiana. If you enjoy reading the content of this blog, please help out by contributing. You can click on the "Make A Donation" button below to support Advance Indiana by using PayPal. Thanks to all of those readers who have made contributions in the past and continue to support this blog with your contributions. If you would rather support the blog using an alternative source of payment or would like to advertise on this blog, e-mail me at gwelsh@indy.rr.com for more information.

Blogflux

Subscribe To

Comment Policy

Advance Indiana allows you to post comments via this blog subject to the guidelines set forth herein. You understand that any comments you post are your own and are not those of Advance Indiana. You further understand that Advance Indiana is not responsible for the content of any external sites referenced in your comments. Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive, or otherwise objectionable comments are not acceptable. If you think any content posted or otherwise included in Advance Indiana violates the guidelines set forth herein, then please alert Advance Indiana.
Advance Indiana reserves the right to pre-screen, edit, and remove any post as it deems appropriate. You specifically acknowledge that Advance Indiana has no obligation to display any post submitted or otherwise provided via Advance Indiana.